The Run Up: A Christmas Triptych
by Kiki Cabou
Summary: Three tiny tales of Christmas at number 12 Grimmauld Place, with a craaaaazy personal challenge thrown in for interest.  For more information, see the intro.  Set during OOTP.  It's completed!  The final chapter is here!  :)
1. Introduction

DISCLAIMER: All claimers have been dissed. You can officially bugger off, the lot of you, you … claimers! LOL

RATING: PG, for drinking, blood, and a reasonably mature tone

CATEGORY: Humor, Drama

SUMMARY: Three tiny tales of Christmas at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Set during the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. For more information, read on.

**The Run-Up: A Christmas Triptych**

The following three pieces all take place within three sentences of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The text can be found on pg. 501 of the American edition (pg. 443 of the British adult edition) and reads –

_How could Harry have dreamed of returning to Privet Drive for Christmas? Sirius's delight at having the house full again, and especially at having Harry back, was infectious. He was no longer their sullen host of the summer; now he seemed determined that everyone should enjoy themselves as much, if not more than they would have done at Hogwarts, and he worked tirelessly in the run-upto Christmas Day, cleaning and decorating with everyone's help..._

DEAR READER,

Like a visual triptych, each of these stories has connecting points that string it together with the others to make a "set." They are in chronological order, so the "hinges" should be pretty easy to see.

Here's where it gets a little nuts.

For a personal challenge (and to repeat the "three" theme), I limited each story to three pages in length. "Three pages," in case you're curious, means single-spaced, non-indented paragraphs with a double space between them, top and bottom margins of 1 inch, left and right margins of 1.25 inches, and a Times New Roman 12 font. The pages include the title of the story, but for the sake of my sanity (which I admit is tenuous at best) not the word "Finis."

Yay! I can work in miniature! Woo-hoo!

The triptych also changes points of view. Changing viewpoints was fun … and hell. Allow me to illustrate:

Sirius is in charge of the first story (Fun.)

Sirius and Harry split the second, and by that I mean they switch off at least twice … in three pages. (HELL! Please let me know how I did with this.)

Harry is in charge of the last story (Fun.)

A final word: I love Sirius Black dearly, but this is my first time writing him. With any luck, I have not mangled his character beyond all recognition. Let me know how I did, would you?

God Rest Ye Merry, dear, and enjoy.

Hug!

Kiki 8-)


	2. Sirius vs The Pudding

SIRIUS VERSUS THE PUDDING

Sirius Black whistled the opening bars of "Deck the Halls," checked that the ties on his flowered apron were nice and snug, and re-did his raven ponytail as he glanced at the recipe one more time. Molly was at St. Mungo's visiting Arthur, and Remus was cleaning with the children, so that meant supper was up to him.

However, after twelve years in Azkaban and two on the run, Sirius was still readjusting to cooking, and the oven at his mother's house was notoriously temperamental. So when Molly asked him to make supper, he tried quite valiantly to wriggle out of it.

"Why can't Remus make it? He's an excellent cook. Besides, I'm very busy."

It was a good argument, but since he was lounging at the kitchen table with the Daily Prophet spread out as he made it, the effect was a little off. Molly pulled herself up tall and shot him one of her legendary glass-melting glares, just as Remus passed by the kitchen doorway, broom in hand.

"I need to be with my husband," she snarled at him. "And he is helping to clean up your filthy house!" she added, pointing at Remus's retreating back. "So you had better stop whining, and start working, you … you layabout!"

Sirius was very annoyed. He always hated it when people placed severe emphasis on their pronouns. And all right, he'd been duffing for an hour, but he was on a break!

"I am not whining," he fired back. "Remus has to be doing more supervising than anything else, because I saw him wandering by five minutes ago, in the opposite direction, with a cup of tea. So why don't you stop calling me lazy and get out of my kitchen before I do something I'll regret!"

With that he stood up, grabbed a hideous flowered apron from a hook on the wall, and donned it. Sleeves rolled up, fists on hips, he faced Molly, puffed-up and fierce.

She smiled kindly at him. "Thank you, dear," she said sweetly, and left.

Sirius stood alone in the kitchen for a moment, furrowing his brow, with the distinct impression that he had just been duped.

Fortunately he put his annoyance on the back burner (so to speak), and started working. An hour into his preparations, the finished salad was sitting in the ice box next to the pork chops, which were marinating in a heady mix of elderflower wine, aged vinegar, and different spices. He proceeded to the pudding, mixing up the batter for the "Chocolate Tonne Cake," as the cookbook called it.

"Let's see," he muttered to himself. "So now I … butter and sugar two circular cake pans, and divide the batter evenly. Right."

As he was buttering the pans, Harry came wandering in, sweaty from cleaning, his clothes and face smeared with soot. They nodded at each other in greeting.

"What are you doing, Sirius? I thought you and the oven weren't speaking," Harry said, pulling open the refrigerator and clanking things around as he hunted for pumpkin juice.

"We're not," Sirius replied. He finished the first pan and started to sugar the second. "But Mrs. Weasley somehow goaded me into making supper. Would you like to help?"

"Er, thanks, but I'll just be your cheering section, if you like."

Sirius smiled. Harry sat down at the table with a pitcher of juice, pouring himself a glass as he watched the preparations. Just as Sirius put the pans in the oven, Remus walked in.

"There you are!" Sirius said when he saw him, and put his hands on his hips in a remarkable imitation of Molly. "Finished avoiding your work, have you?"

"Certainly have," Remus said pleasantly, stretching and sitting down across from Harry. "My, but it's been a long day."

Harry grinned. Sirius snorted.

"Oh come on, Sirius, he needs to rest!" Harry protested. "The full moon's coming."

"I beg your pardon, but it is not!" said Sirius. "It's not for two weeks! Remus, what the hell have you been telling the children?"

Remus had the good grace to look very guilty. Harry looked shocked.

"I can't believe this. Lounging about while exhausted, hard-working teenagers scrub the floors? Shame on you!" Sirius said.

Remus raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, probably to make a sarcastic crack about Sirius's own "layaboutery" when …

"Does anybody else hear that?" Harry interrupted.

Sirius and Remus listened. And then, very slowly, they all turned towards the old steel oven. It was rattling ominously, hardly a good sign. It took an encouraging nod apiece from Harry and Remus to get Sirius to open the oven door. But when he did … BOOM!

In an instant, the three of them (and the kitchen) were covered in warm, goopy, chocolate batter. Sirius looked like a giant, stunned, chocolate-dipped sugar wizard. Harry seemed to be wearing a chocolate mud mask, which looked even more realistic when he took off his glasses. Remus had got a face-full too, and the front of his robes was a mess.

All was still for a moment … until Remus and Harry started laughing like idiots. Sirius turned bright red, bellowed at them to shut up, and fired off a half-dozen creative curses at the oven, which swung its door open again and hit him with a blast of lukewarm grease. By now Harry and Remus were leaning on each other, howling helplessly.

"Aaargh! That's it! _SCOURGIFY!_" Sirius hollered, waving his wand around the entire kitchen.

Immediately the mess vanished, leaving everything and everyone perfectly clean, but the continued cackling of his godson and best mate raised Sirius's hackles marvelously, and he snarled and ground his teeth. Cheeky bastards, the pair of them! He whirled on Harry and Remus, lip curled, wand ready, and they stopped … sort of.

"Right, you, out!" Sirius snapped at Harry, who was desperately fighting down a smile. "Go help Ron with … I don't know … something!" (Harry left the kitchen at a run, now giggling madly.) "And get those Father Christmas hats on the elf heads!" he called after the boy, who managed to shouted back something in the affirmative.

"So I suppose I should go back to Diagon Alley and pick up a pudding for tonight?" Remus asked, trying to sound relaxed and not at all amused and completely failing.

"Please," Sirius replied, eyes narrowed and flashing.

They held each other's gaze for a long moment. Pulses slowed. Breathing quieted. Blood pressure dropped. And they listened. Silence; Harry was out of earshot.

"While you're there, stop by my vault in Gringotts and take out whatever you need."

Remus steepled his fingers. "What do you think for Harry, the Bloomfield set?"

"Yes. Make sure it's the University edition. And when you get back, could you put the pork chops in the oven? I think it likes you better, and I'm not about to ruin everything."

Remus nodded, stood up slowly, and set off. Sirius plopped down with the Prophet again, now in the middle of a spotless kitchen. He began to work on the crossword.

And Molly strode in.

"What the … What's this? I can't believe it! I go away for two hours and you haven't done ONE RUDDY THING! What's the matter with you?!"

"No! Molly, I …"

It was pointless to argue. Once Molly got going, there was no stopping her. Sirius put his head in his hands and began to count backwards from one hundred.

FINIS


	3. Fast Acting

For my three reviewers: **Eggo**, you made my day. Thanks for reading! **Yonder**, thanks for the praise. Underlines are just as correct as italics; it's a personal preference. And you'll have to review again and explain your review, because I read my fic over and I couldn't figure out what "tenses" you were talking about. And **Katie**, thanks for your kind comments. You made me feel like David Copperfield for a second. :D

Here's Number 2. Cheers, everybody!

* * *

FAST-ACTING

After Sirius chucked him out of the kitchen, Harry got himself under control and ran up to the second floor guest quarters to help his friends. Hermione greeted him while twiddling her wand to scrub the floor, and Ron waved before returning to blasting scum off the shower in the guest bathroom and muttering about useless house-elves. Harry walked over to a small closet on the wall, wondering what could be inside.

Hand on the knob, he turned to Hermione. "You two opened this closet yet?"

"No," Hermione said distractedly, twiddling her wand harder. "Would you take a look?"

"Sure," he said, and pulled the door open. A massive amount of dust erupted from the closet, covering Harry from head to foot and making him cough.

Hermione spun around. "Harry?"

Harry, still spluttering, slammed the closet shut and began to dust himself off. "Right, let's see if anybody can scourgify it and then we'll get in there. I couldn't see anything with all the dust!"

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Well, you look a sight! Go wash your face."

Harry nodded at Hermione's sensible suggestion and left. He was halfway down the hallway before he coughed twice into his hands.

He was still coughing later as he and Ron hung the Father Christmas hats on the elf heads downstairs (the twins attached the beards). He coughed his way through the excellent dinner Sirius made. And he coughed so violently into his after-dinner cocoa that he had to mop up his mysteriously wet mouth. The napkin came away stained with blood.

Hermione screamed and Harry started panting in horror, as blood had begun to fill his mouth and dribble down his chin before he could do anything about it. The twins stood up, Ron looked up in shock, Ginny gasped, and Harry saw Sirius get up and run around the table to him, although Mrs. Weasley and Lupin beat him by a nose. All three adults were shouting at once, but Sirius managed to make his question heard.

"Harry, how long have you been coughing?" he asked.

Harry, who was busy stuffing his mouth with napkins and well aware of how stupid he must look, mopped up enough blood to talk, swallowed the rest, and replied, in a rather wheezy voice that quite alarmed him, "Since the closet."

Hermione made a little strangled noise and Sirius whirled on her, saying, "What closet?"

"The one in the guest suite. Harry opened it and there was all this dust …" she said faintly, turning pale. "It must have been poison! And it's been in him for hours!" she finished, her brain finally catching up with her mouth.

Harry saw Sirius shoot a significant glance at Lupin, then turn to Mrs. Weasley. "Molly, stay here with him."

Sirius left Molly with the children and hared off, thundering up the stairs two at a time, Remus right behind him. They burst into the guest suite and sized up the offending door.

"I've got it," Remus said, and mumbled "_Frontere!_"

A shimmering glass box formed around the closet, and Remus nodded at Sirius, who pointed his wand at the doorknob and yanked. As though his wand and the knob were connected by an invisible string, the door swung open, releasing the dust, which swirled inside the box. Sirius lit his wand and held it up to the particles ... they turned blood-red.

"Spemfidia," they said together, each adding a curse under his breath.

"Do you have any –?" Sirius asked, but Remus nodded before he could finish. "I'll get Harry into my room. Bound to be warmer than the one he's sharing with Ron."

"I'll meet you there!" Remus said, and left in a hurry, his voice tight.

Meanwhile, Harry felt like his chest was in a vice. His heart was thudding painfully and his breath came in gasps. What was going on? He squeezed Hermione's hand and pressed another napkin to his face, this time to his nose, which had started a competition with his mouth to see which could stain his shirt better. That was right about when Sirius came barreling in, his eyes wild, lips a thin line, and shoved Hermione out of the way. Harry was about to object to this (however incoherently), but Sirius picked him up like a small child and whisked him out of the kitchen before he could say anything.

Sirius carried him up to a bedroom and dropped him gently onto a soft bed with a green duvet. Harry coughed, stared dizzily at the matching canopy, and vaguely wondered how much blood he'd lost. Something was being pounded on the other side of the room.

"Get him into pajamas, Sirius, I'm mixing it for you now," he heard Lupin say.

And then Sirius was leaning over him. "Harry, you were exposed to Spemfidia Spores. They're harmless to the touch, but if you breathe them in, they can do real damage to your lungs and eventually, well … never mind. Remus is mashing up some Galavan's Peas – it'll kill the spores and heal the damage. We're going to take care of you."

Harry hadn't the slightest idea what Sirius was on about, but that last sentence was very reassuring, so he nodded. His godfather quickly helped him out of his blood-stained, dirty clothes and into some warm pajamas and socks that he'd conjured up.

Harry had just enough time to say "thanks" before he started coughing wildly again, feeling his deep, inner muscles strain and protest. A cloth was thrown over his face. As he brought up his hands to hold it and catch any blood, he felt strong arms underneath him, picking him up and then laying him back down on the bed.

It seemed to take an age, but the fit finally stopped. Harry took a shuddering breath and pulled the cloth away. Sirius was tall above him, looking off towards someone that he assumed was Lupin, nodding and accepting a bowl of something.

"Harry, can you hold your shirt open, please?"

Harry coughed slightly and obliged him. It was then that he saw the bed clothes were drawn back and he was lying on a spread-out quilt. Both Sirius and Lupin were leaning over him, Lupin with a small towel, Sirius with the bowl. Sirius put his hand into the bowl repeatedly, scooping out an acid green sludge that he patted all over Harry's chest. The relief was instantaneous. Harry took a deep breath and found that his insides felt much less as though they were on strike. He'd also lost the urge to hack up a lung.

"Right," said Sirius, finishing his work and throwing Lupin's towel over Harry's chest to keep the salve from getting everywhere. "This stuff should sink into your skin quickly and start working. And don't worry if you feel sleepy, it causes drowsiness …" Harry didn't catch the rest of it. He was sinking, down, down, down … into darkness.

"And a dip in body temperature, but with a good bundling you'll be all right," Sirius continued. He and Remus were crossing to the other side of the room to wash their hands and clean up. "It's very fast-acting stuff, too. You'll be fine by morning. … Harry?"

There was no answer. Sirius walked back to the bed, only to see that Galavan's Peas were indeed fast-acting. His godson was completely limp, nose pointing at the ceiling, his big green eyes closed behind his glasses, his jaw as slack as his limbs. He snored.

Sirius caught himself on the edge of a laugh, fastened the buttons on Harry's pajama shirt, wrapped him up snugly in the quilt, and pulled the covers up to his chin. Then he dragged a chair over to the bedside, well-aware of Remus's eyes on him.

"Well, at least he's the only one who got a blast of it," Remus said lightly. "I'll just go chuck a sporicide bomb in the Border Box and be off to bed, then."

Sirius removed Harry's glasses and turned around. "Sleep well, Remus."

"You too," said Remus, with a smile and a knowing, kind look. He waved his wand in Sirius's direction, making a pillow and a pile of folded blankets appear on the chair. "I wouldn't want him to wake up alone, either. Goodnight."

Sirius nodded, his eyes shining with warmth and gratitude. "Goodnight."

FINIS


	4. Songs My Godfather Taught Me

To my latest reviewers: **Chib-ryu**, thank you for your support, not only of this story, but "A Magic Beyond," too. I really appreciate it. **Shiba-sempai**, I want to thank you too for your support of this and of my other story. I'm so glad you liked Sirius's character, and that it worked for you. **Luvguurl**, thank you! I'm happy you like it! Thanks for reading! And **Overchay**, I agree there was a huge lack of Sirius/Harry interaction in the fifth book. Thus, this project was born. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing.

I also want to thank **Stinky Stan**, who very kindly took a leap of faith on this and archived it on her C2 community. Thanks, Stinky!

So here it is, folks, the final panel of this most bizarre triptych. Enjoy.

* * *

SONGS MY GODFATHER TAUGHT ME

Harry woke up the next morning, warm and comfortable in his cocoon of blankets, and felt quite back to normal. With a sleepy, lazy turn of his head, he saw a blurry Sirius lounging in a chair with a blanket around his shoulders.

"Morning," said Sirius.

"Erm, morning," Harry said back. He wriggled his arms free, took his glasses from the nightstand and put them on. Sirius snapped into focus, smiling so his crows-feet showed.

The sight puzzled Harry. But Sirius said nothing about his apparent bedside vigil, and Harry, thinking he must have missed something obvious and feeling quite stupid, never found the courage to ask his godfather about it.

It didn't look like Sirius noticed Harry's discomfort, though. He helped Harry out of bed, declared him healthy, and handed him clothes, with an order to dress quickly. Mrs. Weasley was making pancakes, but if Harry didn't scoot, they might all disappear before he got any, Sirius said, laughing. He ruffled Harry's hair and left.

Breakfast was delicious, lunch and dinner equally so, and the intervening times flew by in a flurry of last-minute decorating and cleaning, since Christmas Eve Day was tomorrow. Everyone went to bed early. Harry went to bed too, exhausted as the rest of them, but much to his annoyance, he couldn't sleep. So he lay there in the quiet darkness for a bit, blinking at the ceiling as he listened to Ron snore.

Suddenly, there was a blast, a bump that shook a wall, and some muffled cursing below. Resolutely un-sleepy and now quite curious, Harry decided to investigate. He grabbed his wand, put on his glasses, slipped out of bed and crept down the stairs. After a _"Lumos!"_ at the bottom landing, he waved his wand this way and that until he illuminated a shape on the floor. Hurrying towards it he saw it was Sirius, lying in a dazed, dizzy heap under one of the elf-head plaques and wincing at the light.

"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed, helping his godfather up. "What on earth were you doing?"

Sirius was a bit unsteady on his feet. "I was feeling sentimental," he said, toddling into the drawing room and sitting down heavily on the sofa. "Black family tradition, thought I might as well give it a go. Not one of my better ideas, I can tell you." He groaned.

"What happened?" Harry asked, sitting down next to him.

"I tried to incant the first spell to purify the house, and it backfired. Knocked me straight into the wall! Mother's parting gift to me, probably," Sirius explained, now rubbing his head. He sighed. "See, on the night before Christmas Eve, we had to protect the house from evil spirits, or interlopers, or half-bloods, or … well, you get the idea. Anyway, the rituals took all night, so we all had to stay up. World's stupidest tradition, honestly. We were always so knackered by Christmas Day that the dinner table conversation vacillated between boredom and screaming matches. Don't know what made me try it, really."

Harry looked at Sirius for a moment and shut off his wand, leaving them both in darkness. Most people would shake their heads at Sirius and call his display 'misplaced nostalgia.' But to Harry, there was nothing misplaced about longing for your family.

"Erm, want to talk about it?" he asked timidly.

Sirius cast him a shrewd glance. "Somebody," he said, "Is either incredibly bored, or not that keen on sleeping these days, or both."

Harry mumbled something incoherent and admired his slippers. He was pleasantly surprised when Sirius clapped him on the shoulder and led him into the kitchen.

"Ah, a man after my own heart," he said. "Let's have a drink on it, shall we?"

Sirius put a silencing charm on the kitchen door so they wouldn't wake anybody. He poured Harry a glass of warm milk and made himself a cup of tea, and they talked. After all, it was supposed to be just one drink, and then bed.

However, after a few hours eating chocolate biscuits, drinking milk and coffee (Harry had developed a taste for it), and hitting every light topic from Quidditch to the myriad uses of earwax, Harry realized that the one drink was turning into an all-night affair. Not that he minded. Sirius taught him some high-quality dirty jokes and showed him how to play Ka-Blam, a card game he and the other "Marauders" had invented at Hogwarts. It was a very entertaining mix of truth-or-dare and exploding gin rummy.

Sirius also insisted on teaching him to drink firewhisky. "What would James think if I never taught you how?" he argued. "That's dereliction of my godfatherly duty, that is!"

Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow. Sirius, however, just barreled on, clunking two shot glasses onto the table and pouring out two shots of Ogden's.

"Right, pay attention. First, you take a shot." (Sirius did so.) "Then," he said, walking over to the fireplace, "You find a flame, and let one go!" He got down on all fours and belched loudly right into the fire. There was a massive explosion and he pulled away, his face covered in soot. Harry was alarmed, but Sirius just laughed and hiccoughed.

"Come on, boy, have a go! You're in the safe company of a responsible adult."

"Ha! 'Reponsible adult?' Where?" Harry said, amused. He took a shot anyway. The whisky burned and his fireball wasn't all that big, but Sirius looked oddly proud of him.

They played Ka-Blam for a while longer. Sirius had a few more shots of firewhisky. Harry drank some more coffee. They sang several revoltingly modified Christmas carols, secure in the knowledge that no one could hear them, and laughed until their stomachs hurt. And Sirius, once he sobered up, told Harry about some of his misadventures at school. It seemed to Harry that Sirius's time with the Marauders was the best of his life.

After six more biscuits and an espresso each, Sirius had the mad idea to go outside and look at the stars. Harry was, by this point, so thoroughly jumped-up on coffee that he thought this sounded "j-just b-b-b-brilliant!" so Sirius "_accio_"ed two thick coats and two pairs of boots. The two revelers threw these on over their pajamas and went up on the roof of number 12 to have a look.

They craned their necks for a while, but eventually settled on their backs on the snowy rooftop and pointed straight up to show each other constellations before jamming their hands quickly into their pockets. After an hour of this, Harry's back was wet from the snow. He shivered slightly and Sirius slung one arm around his shoulder.

"You see that star, right there?" Sirius asked finally, pointing at a yellow star to their right. "Your dad dedicated that little twinkler to your mum when they got married."

A short silence followed. Harry didn't know what to say to this at all. All he could come up with was "Wow," and that hardly seemed fitting. Sirius, however, didn't seem to be expecting an answer. He just sighed, lost in a memory, and held Harry a little tighter. Then, impulsive as usual, he burst into song – loud, happy, and very out of tune.

"_God rest ye merry, Hippogriffs, let none of you dismay! For there will be some tasty rats for you on Christmas Day! But stay alert when those with missing toes come out to play, oh tidings of comfort and joy, (comfort and joy), oh, tidings of comfort and joy!_"

Harry laughed, tired and warm under his godfather's arm. "I'll have to remember that one. Hey, you know what? I think we should make this our own tradition. I'll come round for Christmas, and we can stay up all night and get sauced."

Sirius chuckled at this idea, his breath frosting in the chill night air. "First off, you're far from sauced. And second, why would you want to stay up all night with this old dog?"

Harry thought for a moment. That question, and the honest, happy response that he carried around in his heart, so well-worded that it scared him, was a bit too delicate for this conversation.

"Thanks for bringing me up here," he said.

And Sirius smiled. "Ah, I wouldn't bring anyone else, lad. Nobody else. Come on, let's get back downstairs. If you catch cold from being out here, Molly'll have my hide."

So they hefted themselves up, heavy with biscuits and coffee and firewhisky and memories, and went back into the house. Harry knew he would be useless and dead tired tomorrow, but exhaustion was a small price to pay for such a night.

FINIS!

* * *

Merry Christmas! Hey … leave me a present, would you? Click that review button and say something. To all those of you who plan on reviewing, I can't thank you individually (no "author notes" or "shout-out" updates allowed), so just know that I luv ya all. Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Kiki


End file.
